Joule picks New Mexico site for solar fuel project; now competitive with $20/barrel diesel?
In Massachusetts, Joule reported that they have signed a lease for 1,200 acres in Lea County, New Mexico, with the potential to scale the project up to 5,000 acres for production of renewable diesel and ethanol directly from sunlight and waste CO2.
The agreement with Lea County is the first to be completed as part of Joule’s production facility siting program. Joule stated that Lea County meets their production requirements, including high solar insolation, access to non-potable water and waste CO2. In addition, Joule could benefit from $19 million in state incentives to facilitate operations at commercial scale.
The bombshell
“At full-scale production, Joule expects to deliver diesel and ethanol for as little as $20/bble and $0.60/gallon respectively, including current subsidies,” the company now says.
Whoa…wasn’t that $30 per barrel diesel, before? Did Joule just drop its costs by 33 percent? Sure ‘nuf.
Is Joule’s fuel a biofuel at all?
Depends on how you define it. According to Joule’s CEO, Bill Sims, no. They prefer “solar fuel”. Their view is based on the fact that they do not utilize a biomass intermediate – processing fuel, for example, from algae or corn. Or even feeding sugar to a magic bug which produces a hydrocarbon molecule.
The question revolves around whether biofuels are fuels made from biomass, or includes fuels made using an organic process that speeds up the natural process by which the earth creates fossil fuels.
Joule, for sure, has some attributes of solar. First, it converts energy directly from the sun, not unlike solar systems – but unlike traditional biofuels or wind energy, which use an intermediate.
It has some other more interesting attributes of solar – namely, the modularity and scale of the Joule “solar converter”. You add it on, in many ways like a series of solar panels.
Unlike solar, it consumes CO2 and water in addition to sunlight.
Overall, we tilt towards “biofuel,” recognizing that, ultimately, all biofuels have a relation back to solar energy, and by extension, so too do fossil fuels. As long as there is a bio-based organism and a man-made technology involved in the process, we think that separates biofuels adequately from solar energy and fossil fuels.
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While I find technologies such as Joule’s fascinating and highly valuable, it sometimes seems various players are reading from different scripts that do no correlate in the longer run. The IEA released its technology road map for biofuels April 20 at the Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference. A close read of this report indicates that they think 28% of carbon reduction in the transportation sector will come from carbon capture and sequestration or reductions in biorefinery energy use. This ignores the necessity of making every waste stream a resource. Joule and others are doing that.
From a climate stand point, we seem to be awash in CO2, but much of it cannot be captured. Used cooking oil used to be a disposal problem, now it is stolen for its value. I can see a time when ‘waste’ CO2 will acquire a value and farther down the line we will experience ‘Peak (waste) CO2′. Where will this CO2 come from in the future? (I don’t think we can drink that much beer!).
In a post fossil fuel world we will still need hydrocarbons. Energy efficiency will take on a new meaning – how efficiently can we extract carbon (CO2) and hydrogen from our environment. It may be that the real value of Joule’s technology is that it can efficiently extract hydrogen from water. (Jim Lane has raised the question of where is ‘cheap hydrogen’ coming from and this may be a way.) But CO2 will still be needed. Industrial uses that that presently create a CO2 waste stream may in the future use small scale nuclear or other non-CO2 producing energy sources.
In the long run, we may be asking the question “where is cheap CO2 coming from.” Traditional photosynthesis may be the answer. It may be that Joule’s technology should not be viewed as a replacement to biomass methods, but rather a way to extend the natural carbon cycle and make it more productive.
Bill Brandon
This article is a bit suspect. I don’t if it’s because it is poorly written or if someone is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Info about alternative energy sources need to be as clean and honest as the power sources themselves.
[...] Joule picks New Mexico site for solar fuel project; now competitive with $20/barrel diesel? : Biofue…. [...]
What do cyanobacteria eat? How can they survive and thrive on sunshine, CO2 and water alone?
Scientifically, this is total nonsense; no living organism can survive and moreover multiply without at least the 20 or so basic elements essential to all organic life forms, and probably at least some of the compounds, like particular vitamins, etc. that it can’t produce itself.
[...] Joule has leased 1,200 acres of land in New Mexico for a pilot program: In Massachusetts, Joule reported that they have signed a lease for 1,200 acres in Lea County, New Mexico, with the potential to scale the project up to 5,000 acres for production of renewable diesel and ethanol directly from sunlight and waste CO2. [...]